Greineder conviction upheld

The Supreme Judicial Court has affirmed the guilty verdict in the case of defendant Dirk K. Greineder, who was accused of murdering his wife in 1999.

The defendant argued that it was error for his extramarital sexual activity to be admitted into evidence, where there was no evidence of prior overt hostility toward the victim.

He asked the SJC to adopt the view expressed in Casterline v. State, a 1987 decision in which the Texas Court of Appeals said “that jealousy or emotion need not necessarily create a homicidal motive,” and that “[i]t would be highly speculative to infer that marital infidelity, standing alone, created a homicidal motive.”

The SJC, however, declined that invitation, finding that the evidence of Greineder’s extramarital sexual activity was highly relevant to a motive to kill and supported a reasonable inference that the victim’s presence “had become an inconvenience to the defendant, and an obstacle to a lifestyle he pursued and kept secret from his entire family and the public.”